Lent Meditation: Day 24 - March 13, 2026

📖 Scripture Verse

Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win!  All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.  — 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (New Living Translation)

🕯️Meditation

In the season of Lent, many people take on practices regarding food and fasting from food on certain days, or abstaining from certain kinds of food.  This is a physical act of discipline, akin to what Paul is talking about here in terms of training his body like an athlete.  Like Paul, its important that we connect our physical disciplines that we undertake for Lent with a spiritual purpose.  A fast is not a diet.  Abstaining from food or drink in Lent is not for the purposes of getting that beach bod we may wish we had.  When we take on practices of fasting or other sorts of self-denial, increasing our prayer time, or intensifying our almsgiving,—this is to connect more deeply to the Christian faith journey.  We are putting “purpose in every step”.  Christ is the team captain of our lives. The disciplines of Lent are training exercises to help us be in sync with the captain, guiding us toward a closer life with him.  It is also strengthening us for the races that life does drop us into sometimes, where the need for spiritual endurance can be intense.

🙏 Prayer

Gracious God, help me take on practices that draw me closer to you, and which strengthen me for the difficult paths that I sometimes have to climb. Amen.

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